How to Use Facebook to Start Getting More Freelance Writing Gigs

According to Facebook, they have about 1,650,000,000 monthly active users as of March 31, 2016. That’s way too many zeros to ignore, don’t you think?

The fact is, if you know how to market your writing services on Facebook, you’ll never starve as a writer – ever!

I know. You’ve probably tried selling your services on Facebook, haven’t you? And I’d bet that you haven’t gotten a single lead (let alone client) out of your marketing efforts.

Trust me; you are not alone.

I know several other freelancers that are struggling with the same thing as well.

If you are in fact getting little to no results out of your marketing efforts on Facebook, then allow me to share with you the exact strategies that I am using when looking for more freelance writing gigs on Facebook.

Let’s hop right in.

Google’s Web Store + Facebook fan page

I’d like to start with this tip right off the bat since I’ve gotten several clients from Facebook by using this strategy alone.

The game plan is quite simple. I just go to Google’s Web Store to uncover apps that the people in my niche would use. From there, I put together a list of these apps so I can look for their pages on Facebook. Once I find their page, I then take the time to comment, share, or engage with their audience so I can learn more about their business and their community.

After about a week or so of nurturing my visibility in their page through commenting, sharing, and liking, I’ll then send the business a private message asking if they’re looking for someone who can help them with their content.

* Important note – I do not just ask the prospect the question, “Do you need someone who can help you with your content?” I feel that the question sounds generic to the point where it looks spammy.

I tend to be very specific. I tell them things like, “I noticed that you haven’t updated your website’s blog posts since (the date since they last published). Are you currently in need of…” This kind of question clearly shows the prospect that you’ve done your homework, and that you aren’t just sending canned messages to everyone.

Be active on communities.

By “communities”, I’m talking about groups or fan pages.

There are several routes that you can take when using this strategy; you can straight up interact with groups that talk about how/where to get freelance writing jobs online, or, you can connect with groups that are all about the niche that you specialize in.

I’m a huge fan of the latter, however.

I’d like to be in niche specific groups since the kind of leads/clients that I get from these groups are of better quality. The topics that they want me to write about are things that I am familiar with, so it becomes easier for me to write their articles.

Invest in networking.

Not many freelancers understand the concept of networking. For them, it is just an idle “hi” or “hello” to other users. They have no clear idea of what it is, or how to even start.

The good news is, while there are in fact several important points that you need to consider to make sure that you’re networking the “right way,” we can pretty much sum the whole thing up in one line. And that line is, “How can you help them?”

Think about this statement when networking with other Facebook users, and I guarantee you that you’ll get better results out of your efforts.

Other freelancers tend to think about, “How do I approach this person so I can benefit from him?” when “networking” with others. It’s because of this that a good number of freelancers end up pitching their services even on their first contact with the other users when they should be focusing on learning more about the needs of the other person.

Look, you’ll need to be a bit more strategic when connecting with the other users, otherwise, you’ll just be spamming them with you first email pitch.

Why don’t you do this instead? Why don’t you ask the other user about what he does in the current company that he is connected with (or the business that he is managing), then ask him how you can help make things better for him?

That’s a pretty good strategy to get the other person to open up to you. Once they’ve opened up to you a bit, you can then strategically pitch your services to them.

Interview

Interviewing other users is also an effective means to turn them into paying clients.

Here’s the gist of the strategy.

All you need to do is reach out to the other Facebook users in your niche, and tell them that you’d like to interview them. Doing so will make them feel that they are important to you and that you value them.

For the most part, I have found that majority of the people that I pitch interview requests are almost always happy to oblige — unless they’re busy or something.

While you can certainly offer to interview someone for free, you might want to be a bit more selective about going about this.

After all, depending on how you want to run the interview, it can be quite time-consuming.

Instead of pitching an interview request to some random person within your industry, you ought to check the individual’s number of followers or his/her position in the company that he is connected with (among other things).

You need to be a bit more selective about who you choose to interview since your goal for connecting with them isn’t merely for the sake of interviewing them, one of your main reasons for doing so it to establish relationships, and win more customers.

As you can probably imagine, there is a world of a difference between the kind of chances that you can get when it comes to closing new clients, if you’re interviewing someone at the executive level, or someone in the frontlines.

When you’ve built a relationship with executives, they can quickly bring you more projects themselves, or they can refer you to their contacts.

What’s next?

Have you been using Facebook to get more freelance writing gigs? What are some of the best strategies that you can share with the community?